What to plant in 2017, using the gardening lessons of 2016 - Financial Times

Friday, January 13, 2017

Gardeners have yet to use these heavenly meadows as their models.
My loveliest garden day of the year was spent in a garden which exemplifies this controlled informality. At Hermannshof near Weinheim and Heidelberg, I walked in early May through an avenue of wisteria and looked out on lilac in full flower and rivers of carefully selected tulips. The finest tulip was yellow Honky Tonk, now waiting to honk in my raised beds where its short stems and elegantly shaped flowers will be a revelation in May, badgers permitting. The Hermannshof style is informal, within a carefully designed framework, and its models are the differing styles of differing ecologies, from steppe to marsh to mountain. In Kyrgyzstan I was able to see from a four-legged vantage point similar changes in each ecological zone, from blue aconitums and salvias in the lower pastures to subnival primulas at heights of 3,500 metres. By rethinking wild groupings, gardeners can find a new style.
The recently bred David Austin rose, Olivia Rose Austin, is the best value of any bush rose now on the market
My second lesson was also taught by absence. Plants which flower for a long season are ever more valuable as they span our times abroad and persist in the prolonged seasons of warmer Britain. Roses had faded when I returned from the mountains and so had most of the low-growing dianthus. However, there were great exceptions, my best finds of 2016. The recently bred David Austin rose, Olivia Rose Austin, is one of them and the best value of any bush rose now on the market. It shows its first flush of cupped soft pink flowers from late May onwards and then it flowers for two more seasons, ending this year with yet more buds in early December. The scent is elusive and on young plants the flowers will sometimes hang on their stems, but they grow out of this habit after their third season. This exceptionally healthy rose is only about 4ft high and can fit into any front garden. Even after a midsummer absence I do not feel I missed it at its best.
Nor did I miss two fabulous new pinks, a double white and a double red dianthus. White-flowered Dianthus Memories and deep red-flowered Passion were recently bred in Devon by Whetman Pinks and have promptly refuted my scepticism by doing just what the breeders claimed. Outdoors they flower for an amazingly long season from late April until late autumn. This year’s non-winter went one better and kept them in flower until the week before Christmas. In a frost-free greenhouse they can then be forced into flower again in February. The flowers are well shaped, much finer than those sprays of small-flowered dianthus from florists. The plants are vigorous and root ridiculously well from cuttings. Like Olivia Rose they are now essentials for any thoughtful garden.
So is my unexpected plant of the year. For decades I have avoided pink-purple cosmos daisies and only grown the white-flowered ones, especially the tall Purity. For 2016 Thompson & Morgan came up with a new dark red-purple variety called Rubenza, which it praised for its continuing contribution to late summer borders at a height of about 3ft. Rubenza is a winner. The flowers are silky with a depth of colour that does not fade back to mauve. It goes on flowering when even the white-flowered varieties are losing stamina. It stands out in any border and is wonderfully easy to grow. It is not at home in Central Asia, but will still be at its best when you return from 2017’s adventures on the wild side of life.
Photograph: Dave Zubraski/GAP Photos
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The garden in Germany that has its planting down to a science - Financial Times

Driving Germany's 'Romantic Road' - Condé Nast Traveler

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Main to the Alps in the 1950s, when it needed a bit of post-war positivity; it's said the earliest visitors were "friends and families of American soldiers stationed in the large bases in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg." Americans still flock here, as do Asians, Europeans, and even Germans themselves, and though main attractions can get crowded, there are more than enough quiet corners of castles and cobblestoned alleys in 12th-century towns for everybody.The Trip: Three days, 285 milesStarting in Munich, head southwest toward Füssen at the beginning (or end) of the Romantic Road, and from there, go north to the wine city of Würzburg.What to DriveFor the love of all that is good and muscle-bound, please rent a fast German car. A BMW, an Audi, a Mercedes—doesn't matter. Just pick one and don't let the rental car company try to give you something compact. You'll be on the Autobahn for the initial stretch of the drive out of Munich, and you'll feel safer in a ride with a big engine when everyone else is going 120 mph. Plus, who goes "wooo!" in a Geo on the Autobahn?Day 1: Follow the commuters zooming south out of Munich on A96 toward Füssen and, nearby, King Ludwig II's Neuschwanstein Castle in Schwangau, known as the real-life inspiration for Disney's Sleeping Beauty palace. The 19th-century Romanesque Revival up on the hills does set the fairy-tale tone for this 285-mile ride, though before that, the drive is all highway, all business. You can either start the touristing straight a...

Why Germany comes alive with religious bombast on Fronleichnam

Saturday, June 24, 2017

The first Fronleichnam procession was held in the year 1270.Where is it celebrated?
If you are lucky enough to live in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate or North Rhine-Westphalia, you have a holiday on Thursday because of Fronleichnam. If you live anywhere else, more fool you for picking a part of Germany where Martin Luther got the upper hand.A water based parade in Staffelsee, Bavaria. Photo:: DPAWhen is it celebrated?
Fronleichnam is always celebrated on the second Thursday after Whitsun. It is really a sort of delayed celebration of the Last Supper which took place on Maundy Thursday. According to Dom Radio, the radio station of the Cologne Cathedral, celebrating the fest on Maundy Thursday wouldn’t befit the reflective nature of Easter.
Catholics in states that don’t have a public holiday have their processions on the following weekend.How is it celebrated?
Differently in different places. In Fritzlar in north Hesse, the celebrations start on Wednesday night with the so-called Katzenkoppschießen. During this ceremony, the eight bells of the town cathedral are rung and a canon is fired, a ritual that is repeated three times.
In Cologne, there is a procession involving over 100 ships, while in Bamberg 18 men carry a huge cross through the town.A floral carpet in Hüfingen, Baden-Württemberg. Photo: DPA
Generally the fest is celebrated with processions in which believers carry an ornately decorated monstrance with a sacred Eucharist wafer through the streets.
The towns of Hüfingen and Mühlenbach are renowned for their carpets made of flowers, which decorate the route of the procession and stretch to 100 metres in length.
It is also common for flags to festoon the route of the procession, while processions often visit alters along the way.The political dimension
According to Dom Radio, the processions have often had a subversive element. The extrovert and bombastic character was meant to show Protestants how great it is to be a Catholic. Luther, for his part, described th...http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=0618E6A2D6B140F8A3A78CEA5AF06F10&url=https%3a%2f%2fwww.thelocal.de%2f20170615%2fwhy-germany-comes-alive-with-religious-bombast-on-fronleichnam&c=647116908274741890&mkt=en-us